EU Referendum


EU Referendum: a paucity of power


05/11/2015



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One extraordinary thing about the current debate on the EU referendum is not so much its extent as its limited scope: the same issues, the same FUD and the same fog of ignorance.

It is that, probably more than anything, seems to be running out of steam, as the parties avoid the core issues. The remainers avoid telling us what continued EU membership looks like, while the "high-noise" leavers are unable to describe a post-exit Britain.

But nothing adds more to the air of unreality than the pretence by ministers that they are seeking real objectives, when they are chasing shadows – ideas with no substance at all.

Into this comes the quest by the Prime Minister and Chancellor for an "emergency brake", supposedly to safeguard the economic interests of non-euro countries, something to which George Osborne referrred in his Berlin speech.

But even the Financial Times seems to be having trouble with the terminology, which makes this quest even less substantial. Says this newspaper, David Cameron and George Osborne want a "protocol" that enables the EU single market to coexist more easily with an integrated eurozone.

The point about a "protocol", however, is that this is a formal addendum to a treaty, and thus has the same status, requiring the same procedures to bring it into being – unanimous agreement by all 28 Member States and then ratification.

As such, there is not the slightest hope in the known universe of getting such an agreement through the system, which means that the whole idea is a complete non-starter.

Recognising the futility of this quest, we now see a different option being touted, which goes by the name of the Ioannina mechanism, which has been used to delay a decision if a country feels that its vital interests are threatened but cannot muster a blocking minority under qualified majority voting.

It was first proposed at a Council meeting in Ioannina, a Greek city north of Athens, in 1994, when foreign ministers from the then 15-member union were called to discuss how voting rules should change if Norway joined the EU.

At the meeting, ministers agreed that if EU members wished to oppose a measure but could not muster enough support to block it, they could ask the bloc's council of member states to do "all within its power, within a reasonable space of time, to reach a satisfactory solution" that would be acceptable to a qualified majority.

This "mechanism", though, has the status only of a political declaration which, as the UN points out is not legally binding. This is so far from the idea of Mr Cameron's full-on treaty change that it is a travesty.

All of this makes the posturing of Messrs Cameron and Osborne totally valueless. Nothing therefore better demonstrates the paucity of power in this land. Our ministers are not in control – all that is left is pretence.